Time to prepare the CMS (Central Management Store) and create and publish the Topology.

Solution

The CMS (Central Management Store) is responsible to keep consistency of all Skype for Business Server environment in a central location.

In this Tutorial we are going to cover the creation of the CMS on the server, and the creation of the Topology.

Creating the Central Management Store…

The next step is to prepare the first Standard Edition server to host the CMS, and to do that we need to click on Prepare first Standard Edition server in the first page of the Skype for Business server 2015 Deployment Wizard.

In the first page, just click Next

During the process we may receive a warning like the one shown in the figure below which may include a restart of the server or even a required update. Please, work on the alert that is reported before continuing. In case of an issue, click on Finish and work on the issue before continuing.

In the example below, the server requires a restart, click on Finish, and restart the server.

To return to the CMS deployment, we can always open Skype for Business Server Deployment Wizard and repeat the same steps that we described previously.

In the second attempt, the process is completed successfully as shown in the figure below. Click on Finish.

At this point we have the CMS deployed but it is empty and we need to populate with our initial topology.

Creating a Topology…

In order to create a topology, open Skype for Business Topology Builder which was available after the Administrative Tools installation.

In the first window, select New Topology, and click OK.

A .tbxml file will be used to save the topology locally, let’s name the file as NewTopology and use the Desktop location.

In the Define the primary domain page. Type in the primary SIP domain for the organization, in our case is going to be patricio.ca and click Next.

In the Specify additional supported domains page. Here we can add additional SIP domains for the Skype for Business environment. Click Next.

In the Define the first site page. We need to define a name for the new site where the first server will be located. Fill out the required information based on your environment and click Next.

In the Specify site details page. Fill out detailed information about the new site, and click Next.

In the New Topology was successfully defined page. So far we defined the first site in the Skype for Business environment. At the end of this wizard, if we select the option Open the New Front End Wizard when this wizard closes, then we will defining the first Front-End Server. Click on Finish.

In the initial page, just click Next.

In the Define the Front End pool FQDN page. We are building a simple infrastructure for Skype for Business, click on Standard Edition Server, and type in the FQDN of the current server, and click Next.

In the Select Features page. Here we can define which features will be available on the server, for now we are going to select only Conferencing (includes audio, videos and application sharing) and click Next.

In the Select collocated server roles page. If there is any telephony integration (IP/PSTN gateway or IP-PBX) available we can select this role. In our case our environment will not be connected to those devices, click Next.

In the Associate server roles with this Front End pool page. We can associate Edge pools to the current Front End, we will leave default settings, then click Next.

In the Define the SQL Server store page. Since we are building a Standard Front End, there is not a lot of options available because the SQL will be a local instance, just click Next.

In the Define the file store page. We need to define a share to host files required by Skype for Business. We already created the File Share on the main article of this series. Just type in the FQDN of the Skype for Business Server and we created the Shared called SBShare. After typing in the required information, click Next.

In the Specify the Web Services URL page. We can define the Web Service URL for external requests, and in this tutorial we are going to define webconf.patricio.ca, and then click Next.

In the Select an Office Web Apps Server page. If we have a Office Web Apps available we can associate it to the Skype for Busines Server. Click on Finish.
Note: The Office Web Apps Server is only accessible by the Front-End role and Skype for Business clients.

Defining the Simple URLs..

After completing the new topology wizard, we will have the entire new infrastructure laid out in the Topology Builder, however we need to define the simple URLs.

We still need to check and configure the Simple URLs, right-click on Skype for Business Server which is the first item on the left, and click on Edit Properties

The simple URLs for phone acces and meeting URLS were already defined, however we need to add one for the administration, and we will be using https://admin.patricio.ca (the SB-EasyDNS.ps1 is creating that entry on the DNS).

In the same page, make sure to define the Skype for Business Server in the Central Management Server, and then click OK.

Publishing the new topology…

Now that we have the first topology created, right-click on skype for Business Server, and then click on Publish Topology…

In the Publish the Topology page. Just click Next.

In the Select Central Management Server page. Select the Skype for Business Server and click on Next.

In the Publishing wizard complete page. Wait the process to complete, and if everything went well, then click Finish.

The result of this Tutorial is that the topology repository was created, and the initial topology was added to it. Do we have the Skype for Business Server installed? NO, we just defined the settings but the software was not installed yet.

Anderson Patricio is a Canadian MVP in Cloud and Datacenter Management, and Office Server and Services, besides the Microsoft Award he also holds a Solutions Master (MCSM) in Exchange and several other certifications. Anderson has been contributing to the Microsoft Community with articles, tutorials, blog posts, twitter, forums and book reviews. He is a regular contributor here at ITPROCentral.com, MSExchange.org, Techgenix.com and Anderson Patricio.org (Portuguese).

Good to know you will be releasing Enterprise series soon. There is a feature in S4B to enable archiving for Exchange which, I would like to use it with on premise Exchange 2013. Not sure how and what configuration are needed. I will follow your material for Archiving feature when you release Enterprise series.

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